Buddha’s message

 

 

It is very significant. A Master reflects, mirrors. A Master simply gives you back again and again. A master does not improve upon you. He does not give you a should, because all shoulds create guilt. A Master does not give you any ideal, because all ideals create tension, anguish.

 

A Master never says, ”This is bad and that is good.” He never creates values, because all values create splits. A Master never teaches judgement, he teaches you to live without judging, without condemning, without saying good or bad. Let life flow as it is.

 

Listen to this beautiful parable and you will understand the mirrorlike quality of a Master. This is one of the most famous Zen stories about the great Zen Master Hakuin when he was at Shoinji temple. A girl among the congregation became pregnant. Her severe father bullied her for the name of the lover, and in the end, thinking that if she said so she might escape punishment, she told him: ”It is that Zen Master Hakuin.”

 

The father said no more, but when the time came and the child was born he at once took it to him and threw the baby down. ”It seems that this is your child.” And he piled on every insult and sneer at the disgrace of the affair.

 

The Zen Master only said: ”OH, IS THAT SO?” and took the baby up into his arms. There after, during rainy days and stormy nights he would go out to beg milk from the neighboring houses. Wherever he went he took the baby, wrapped in the sleeve of his ragged robe.

 

Now he, who had been regarded as a living Buddha, worshipped as a Shakyamuni, had fallen indeed. Many of the disciples who had flocked to him turned against him and left him.

 

The Master still said not a word. Meantime the mother found she could not bear the agony of separation from her child and, further, began to be afraid of the consequences in the next life of what she had done. She confessed the name of the real father of the child. Her own father, rigid in his conception of virtue, became almost mad with fear.

 

He rushed to Hakuin and prostrated himself, begging over and over again for forgiveness. The Zen Master this time too said only: ”OH, IS THAT SO?” and gave him the child back. Both times the same thing: ”OH, IS THAT SO?” The first time the father throws the child on Hakuin and says, ”This is your child,”

 

Hakuin does not say yes or no, he does not protest. He simply accepts. He says, ”Oh, is that so?” And after months... and you can understand his difficulties: the small child, and the town has turned against him. Begging for himself has become difficult, and to beg for the child is even more difficult, and he has to take care of the child.

 

But not for a single moment does he utter anything against it. This is acceptance – tathata – this is suchness. Whatsoever life brings is okay, absolutely okay. And when the father comes back and snatches the child, and says, ”Excuse me”, and asks forgiveness: ”It was wrong and you are not the father of the child – there is somebody else who is the father of the child, forgive me,”

 

Hakuin says, ”Oh, is that so?” and gives the child back. Not a single comment. This is the mirror-like quality. Nothing is good, nothing is bad – all is divine. This is Buddha’s message. A Master reflects in his each act.

 

- Osho,  'Zen: The Path of Paradox, Vol 3, #5'